The old Orioles with Brooks, Belanger, Blair, and Boog were some of my favorite teams after Bud stole the Pilots. At least the first of those three were big defensive contributors. For the 69-73 teams, all but the last didn't have the DH, so were essentially comparable to NL teams, at least in terms of pitchers batting. Usually, they only had 1-2 batters, including Belanger, with OPS under .700, plus the pitcher. They didn't exactly have difficulty scoring runs, finishing in the top 3 in the league in all but one year. Having a few offensive black holes won't kill your offense. Having four (plus a bad DH) like the 2009 M's will. The A's and Royals had similar team OPS to the M's. The A's with only two positions under .700 OPS scored 119 more runs. The Royals also with four black holes on offense still outscored the M's by 46, but were easily next to last in RS. I expect the M's to show better team OPS in 2010 and score much closer to league avg, just by replacing some black holes with better hitters. C and SS may still likely be under .700 OPS, but LF and 3B should be vastly improved. Also, I sure hope we get more out of DH, since there is no benefit playing a gold glover there. Kidding, sort of.